Copying is about reverse-engineering. - Austin Kleon

The computer is really good for editing your ideas, and it’s really good for getting your ideas ready for publishing out into the world, but it’s not really good for generating ideas. There are too many opportunities to hit the delete key. The computer brings out the uptight perfectionist in us — we start editing ideas before we have them. The cartoonist Tom Gauld says he stays away from the computer until he’s done most of the thinking for his strips, because once the computer is involved, “things are on an inevitable path to being finished. Whereas in my sketchbook the possibilities are endless.

It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your
imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings,
photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture,
bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and
shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your
shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your
soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.